A journey to far-away land

It was 01:20. That meant 10 more minutes for the scheduled end of the class. But our Quantitative Methods sir decided to end the class then and there. I heaved a sigh of relief. My train to Chennai was at 02:30 and I needed to leave the campus as soon as I could. 10 mins was a lot of time then.

But the moment the Prof signalled the end of the session, the whole class began shouting “Last class as bachelor for Vishwaaaaaaa!”. And Muru screamed “Please advise him, Sir!”.

In his characteristic style, DinKu sir quoted a one-liner: “Love is blind. But marriage is an eye-opener. You will learn it soon.”

Then with a little prodding from Sir, the class started looking for someone to sing some song for me. A few arbit leg-pulls later, Abhilash stood up. As is his wont, he began by saying “On behalf of section D, let me sing a song for you”. Sportively, he then rendered a few lines of nalam vaazha ennaalum en vaazhthukkal. Felt great to listen to that!

Half an hour, and an auto fight later, I was seated in Brindavan Express wondering about the past few weeks. So much had happened in my life. I had got through Mahindra & Mahindra for a group management role – an assignment I am really excited about.

And my marriage was fixed.

I had fixed the bride a long time back, but the wedding itself was finalized the day after I got placed. And the muhurth was just 3 weeks away! That meant near zilch time for all preps, and so both the households spurred into action. And here I was at IIMB... Far away from all the action. From all the excitement. As people at home discussed invitation lists and travel plans, I was worrying myself about assignments and submissions that would mean nothing in the larger scheme of things for me!

And it was largely that. The only thing I did for my own marriage was – inviting my friends. That exhausts most of the efforts I took for this big moment of mine. So naturally I was missing the zing in my consciousness that one would normally associate with such an event in one’s own life.

Until last Saturday.

That was when my friends organized a surprise bachelor’s party for me! I had absolutely no clue about it until a few minutes before I was taken to the venue. And it felt grrrrrrrrrrreat! The moment I reached G-top – our standard venue for parties – the whole group erupted into loud cheers. And scared the hell out of me! The crowd was much bigger than it normally was, and that was reason enough for me to feel great. The proceedings began the playing of a video that my friends had shot for me – allllllll girls of my class said things to me on the video that I could not publish here simply cos Mom frequents this space. Ok the video was scripted and staged. So what! Not many know that na ;) Muru, NT, Vineet and Das led the class in doing so much – the first few moments when the thought that I was getting married actually sunk in.

It was 4.30 AM when Pehla Nasha was played to signal the end of the revelry. The crowd had thinned, but my excitement had not.

Cut to the present.

Seated in the Brindavan, I was wondering about how fast the past few weeks had gone by. As I marvelled at that, a couple of guys rushed into the compartment and looked around, calling out to someone outside “All seats till 32 are ours”.

Mine was 36. And that meant I was right in the thick of the action. A huge group of people of all shapes, ages and sizes started filing in. One look at them would tell anyone that it was a marriage gumbal. As the bride stood outside the coach bidding adieu to everything and everybody she had known over the 20+ years of her being, I couldn’t help but think that this scene was just a few days away in my own life.

Pretty soon the train started moving and I got immersed in my laptop. An hour later I began watching Dasvidaniya. When the movie came to the part where Vinay Pathak visits his childhood crush Neha and they begin discussing memories, I suddenly got a whiff of a fragrance that took me back to my own childhood in a jiffy. It made me take a reflex peek outside the window. And spot the broad expanse of the Yelagiri Hills.

That meant Jolarpet.

That meant Tirupattur – my native place. The Tirupattur that I used to visit once in 3 – 6 months when I was a kid. The Tirupattur where 32 of us would reside under a single roof during the summer holidays. The Tirupattur where the absence of a TV at home meant absolutely nothing to any of us kids. The Tirupattur where there were dozens of relatives living literally a stone’s throw away.

The Tirupattur that I had not visited for years now.

Continued here